It’s unknown how many of those children are now covered through their parents’ insurance. In Florida’s case, doing so would help an estimated 514,000 residents gain health coverage, according to an October analysis by the Urban Institute.įlorida has had one of the highest child uninsured rates for many years, higher than poorer states such as neighboring Alabama, another state that has refused to expand Medicaid, said Joan Alker, executive director at the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families.Īlmost 823,000 Floridians have lost Medicaid coverage since April, when states could remove recipients for the first time since the pandemic began. The act provides extra federal funding to states that increase eligibility. Almost 6,000 were for out-of-state residents.Įven as states long opposed to Medicaid expansion such as South Dakota and North Carolina have recently reversed course, Florida remains in a group of 10 holdout states that refuse to expand the program as part of the Affordable Care Act. About 65,000 abortions have been recorded by the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration so far this year. With Florida’s ban held up in legal challenges, the state continues to be one of the biggest providers of abortions in the Southeast. A recent successful ballot measure in Ohio suggests that preserving abortion rights remains an effective issue for Democrats to drive turnout. The issue remains a difficult one for Republicans. Opponents of Florida’s abortion restrictions say the threat of a felony arrest for violating the law makes it difficult for a doctor to provide an abortion they think is necessary.Īfter months of declining to directly answer whether he would support a nationwide abortion ban, DeSantis said during the second GOP presidential primary debate that he would sign a 15-week federal abortion ban. That law does not have any exceptions for victims of rape or incest but does have exceptions for the health of the mother. That bill has not taken effect, because of a pending court challenge over Florida’s current 15-week abortion ban, which DeSantis signed in 2022. That bill, which DeSantis signed this year, has exceptions for rape, incest, and human trafficking up to 15 weeks into the pregnancy if the woman seeking an abortion has documentation proving her circumstances. But he has faced pushback from the anti-abortion crowd for his initial reluctance to endorse a federal ban and from other anti-abortion Republicans for signing a ban on most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, which some have said is too extreme. Having led Florida through hurricanes Ian and Idalia, DeSantis may want a similar response to public health emergencies like covid-19, where states take the lead and the federal government’s role is to support them, he said.ĭeSantis has said he supports a “culture of life.” As governor, he’s signed the most anti-abortion modern-day legislation Florida has seen. The pandemic exposed that Florida’s public health system had been underfunded and largely ignored by successive administrations, including DeSantis’, Wolfson said. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.ĭeSantis as president would likely downplay the importance of the CDC, which is an advisory body, and instead might require states to invest more in public health infrastructure, said Jay Wolfson, a public health professor at the University of South Florida. Later, DeSantis’ health department recommended against vaccines for young men and against people under 65 getting updated vaccines, guidance that contradicted that of the U.S. At news conferences, DeSantis publicized covid-19 treatments such as monoclonal antibodies but didn’t urge residents to get vaccinated. Subsequently, Florida was the only state not to preorder covid-19 vaccine doses for children under 5 when those became available in 2022. A Harvard-trained doctor, Ladapo had gained prominence as a skeptic of the scientific consensus on how to treat and prevent the spread of the virus. That changed in 2021, when DeSantis appointed Joseph Ladapo as his next surgeon general. He later suspended local pandemic restrictions and outlawed vaccine passports.ĭeSantis did initially champion covid-19 vaccines, especially for Florida’s older adults. Florida was one of four states that reopened schools in August 2020, and DeSantis banned cities and counties from enforcing mask mandates.
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